Bubbles… Foam! He could see! Swim up! Swim!

Part Six.

Tsuru no Sugomori

Etchebar

Hel parked the Vol vo in the deserted square of etchebar and got out heavily, forgetting to close the door behind him, neglecting to give the car its ritual bash. He drew a long breath and pushed it out slowly, then he walked up the curving road toward his château.

From behind half-closed shutters women of the village watched him and admonished their children not to play in the square until M. Hel was gone. It had been eight days since M. Hel had gone into the mountains with Le Cagot, and those terrible men in uniform had descended on the village and done dreadful things to the château. No one had seen M. Hel since then; it had been rumored that he was dead. Now he was returning to his demolished home, but no one dared to greet him. In this ancient high mountain village, primitive instincts prevailed; everyone knew it was unwise to associate with the unfortunate, lest the misfortune be contagious. After all, was it not God’s will that this terrible thing happen? Was not the outlander being punished for living with an Oriental woman, possibly without the sanction of marriage. And who could know what other things God was punishing him for? Oh yes, one could feel pity—one was required by the church to feel pity—but it would be unwise to consort with those whom God punishes. One must be compassionate, but not to the extent of personal risk.

As he walked up the long allée, Hel could not see what they had done to his home; the sweeping pines screened it from view. But from the bottom of the terrace, the extent of the damage was clear. The central block and the east wing were gone, the walls blown away and rubble thrown in all directions, blocks of granite and marble lying partially buried in the scarred lawn as much as fifty meters away; a low jagged wall rimmed the gaping cellars, deep in shadow and dank with seep water from underground springs. Most of the west wing still stood, the rooms open to the weather where the connecting walls had been ripped away. It had been burned out; floors had caved in, and charred beams dangled, broken, into the spaces below. The glass had been blown from every window and porte-fenêtre, and above them were wide daggers of soot where flames had roared out. The smell of burned oak was carried on a soft wind that fluttered shreds of drapery.

There was no sound other than the sibilance of the wind through the pines as he picked his way through the rubble to investigate the standing walls of the west wing. At three places he found holes drilled into the granite blocks. The charges they had placed had failed to go off; and they had contented themselves with the destruction of the fire.

It was the Japanese garden that pained him most. Obviously, the raiders had been instructed to take special pains with the garden. They had used flame throwers. The sounding stream wound through charred stubble and, even after a week, its surface carried an oily residue. The bathing house and its surrounding bamboo grove were gone, but already a few shoots of bamboo, that most tenacious grass, were pushing through the blackened ground.

The tatami ’d dependency and its attached gun room had been spared, save that the rice-paper doors were blown in by the concussion. These fragile structures had bent before the storm and had survived.

As he walked across the ravished garden, his shoes kicked up puffs of fine black ash. He sat heavily on the sill of the tatami ’d room, his legs dangling over the edge. It was odd and somehow touching that tea utensils were still set out on the low lacquered table.

He was sitting, his head bent in deep fatigue, when he felt the approach of Pierre.

The old man’s voice was moist with regret. “Oh, M’sieur! Oh! M’sieur! See what they have done to us! Poor Madame. You have seen her? She is well?”

For the past four days, Hel had been at the hospital in Oloron, leaving Hana’s side only when ordered to by the doctors.

Pierre’s rheumy eyes drooped with compassion as he realized his patron’s physical state. “But look at you, M’sieur!” A bandage was wrapped under Hel’s chin and over his head, to hold the jaw in place while it mended; bruises on his face were still plum colored; inside his shirt, his upper arm was wrapped tightly to his chest to prevent movement of the shoulder, and both his hands were bandaged from the wrists to the second knuckle.

“You don’t look so good yourself, Pierre,” he said, his voice muffled and dental.

Pierre shrugged. “Oh, I shall be all right. But see, our hands are the same!” He lifted his hands, revealing wraps of gauze covering the gel on his burned palms. He had a bruise over one eyebrow.

Hel noticed a dark stain down the front of Pierre’s unbuttoned shirt. Obviously, a glass of wine had slipped from between the awkward paddles at the ends of his wrists. “How did you hurt your head?”

“It was the bandits, M’sieur. One of them struck me with a rifle butt when I was trying to stop them.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“Oh, M’sieur! It was too terrible!”

“Just tell me about it. Be calm, and tell me.”

“Perhaps we could go to the gate house? I shall offer you a little glass, and maybe I will have one myself. Then I shall tell you.”

“All right.”

As they walked to Pierre’s gate house, the old gardener suggested that M. Hel stay with him, for the bandits had spared his little home.

Hel sat in a deep chair with broken springs from which litter had been thrown by Pierre to make a space for his guest. The old man had drunk from the bottle, an easier thing to hold, and was now staring out over the valley from the small window of his second-floor living quarters.

“I was working, M’sieur. Attending to a thousand things. Madame had called down to Tardets for a car to take her to where the airplanes land, and I was waiting for it to arrive. I heard a buzzing from far out over the mountains. The sound grew louder. They came like huge flying insects, skimming over the hills, close to the earth.”

“What came?”

“The bandits! In autogiros!”

“In helicopters?”

“Yes. Two of them. With a great noise, they landed in the park, and the ugly machines vomited men out. The men all had guns. They were dressed in mottled green clothes, with orange berets. They shouted to one another as they ran toward the château. I called after them, telling them to go away. The women of the kitchen screamed and fled toward the village. I ran after, the bandits, threatening to tell M’sieur Hel on them if they did not go at once. One of them hit me with his gun, and I fell down. Great noise! Explosions! And all the time the two great autogiros sat on the lawn, their wings turning around and around. When I could stand, I ran toward the château. I was willing to fight them, M’sieur. I was willing to fight them!”

“I know.”

“Yes, but they were by then running back toward their machines. I was knocked down again! When I got to the château… Oh, M’sieur! All gone! Smoke and flame everywhere! Everything! Everything! Then, M’sieur…Oh, God in mercy! I saw Madame at the window of the burning part. All around her, flame, I rushed in. Fiery things were falling all about me. When I got to her, she was just standing there. She could not find her way out! The windows had burst in upon her, and the glass… Oh, M’sieur, the glass!” Pierre had been struggling to contain his tears. He snatched off his beret and covered his face with it. There was a diagonal line across his forehead separating white skin from his deeply weatherbeaten face. Not for forty years had his beret been off while he was outdoors. He scrubbed his eyes with his beret, snorted loudly, and put it on again. “I took Madame and brought her out. The way was blocked by burning things. I had to pull them away with my hands. But I got out! I got her out! But the glass!…” Pierre broke down; he gulped as tears flowed from his nostrils.